5 Common Struggles of New Business Owners

02 Jun 5 Common Struggles of New Business Owners

The first year of a business is going to be a tough one. Just like everything else in life—learning how to drive a bike, baking a cake, and more—the first few moments will be a struggle. The good thing is millions of other starting entrepreneurs have struggled before. And because of that, new entrepreneurs can learn from their struggles.

Finances

This is not a surprise, of course. A business has a hard time taking off right away because of finances. And one it is operational, the financial aspect will not get better for at least a year. There is constant fear if an entrepreneur’s capital is enough to keep the business coasting through for months until real profit comes in. But most of the expenses are expected. When an entrepreneur opens up a business, it is expected that he has a financial plan on how to survive a certain number of months. It is the unexpected situations that become a big financial burden: natural disasters, theft, unforeseen circumstances. When these happen, it will definitely throw you off financially. It truly helps that you have insurance in terms of natural disasters, but you will still need to take out from your own pocket in order to keep the business afloat.

Employment

Startup companies will always have a harder time hiring employees because of the lack of stability—at least on the employees’ perspective. The biggest challenge here is the on-boarding process because this would go back to struggle No. 1. According to Inc.com, the hiring process would cost the company at least 1.5 to three times more than the actual salary of a person because of taxes, benefits, training, bonuses, etc. Then, when you have successfully hired the employee/s, you have to struggle to keep them. And that includes giving great healthcare benefits and others. Small business owners will have a hard time keeping up with the employee benefits of more established companies.

Time management

Every starting entrepreneur will have to sacrifice a lot of sleeping hours for at least the first few months of the business. The business owner and some key personnel are expected to take on multiple roles in order to keep the business flowing smoothly. Time management will definitely be a struggle.

Marketing

How do we encourage people to buy our staff or use our services? Marketing is going to be tricky—both for a business that is rare and common. For rare ones, how do we tell people that this thing or service exists? For common trade, how do we tell customers to choose us? There are experts who can do this—but can your startup fund afford to pay the marketing company? And if you do this by yourself, will you able to attract customers? Decisions, decisions…

Making / increasing profits

Now that the business is operational, the small business owner will not focus on making money. Even large corporations continue to have that struggle: how to increase profits. Because there is no ceiling on how much a business should earn. But for smaller companies, making a profit is hard enough; sustaining it and increasing the profit is a tough struggle.